Godfrey Bloom MEP, a class apart in ignorance, idiocy and inaccuracy

When UKIP says the pathetic and stunningly inaccurate comments of MEP Godfrey Bloom are being ‘discussed right at the very highest level of the party’, we can be absolutely certain this is true. But there won’t be any sanction for Bloom.

For while Paul Nuttall may be Nigel Farage’s deputy leader, Bloom occupies a special and very senior place in the Farage hierarchy, not just as a party ally on the Brussels gravy train, but as one of Farage’s closest confidantes and advisers. He is very much first among Farage’s right hand men. He is also too stupid to represent a threat to Farage’s position as leader, so he fits the criteria for senior status in the party. As such, Bloom is teflon and regardless of the harm he may do to UKIP, Farage adores him. It will all be laughed off internally over a pint or six.

So what of the comments themselves? Racist? No. Pathetic, boorish, arrogant, demeaning, antagonistic, needless and stupid? Absolutely. But then this story is not unexpected because Bloom has demonstrated these same character flaws, among others, many times before and he does it because he revels in courting controversy and thinks it plays well to UKIP’s core constituency. Making such comments also allow him to indulge his fetish for acting like an uneducated juvenile delinquent.

But lacking judgement of a soundness even a 10-year-old can boast, Bloom is the poster boy for much of what is wrong with UKIP and Farage himself. He was talking to an audience of activists who would likely benefit from reassurance that UKIP’s leaders, of which Bloom is one, have serious messages to convey which have the capacity to resonate with respectable voters who are sick of the mainstream political stitch up and want a viable alternative at the ballot box. Instead they got the hackneyed old misogynist and cultural supremacist staggering along his usual path, the bottom of the sewer.

Bloom could have made a serious point, using powerful oratory to burn into people’s minds the injustice of sending billions of our tax pounds overseas, where so many of them are squandered and snaffled by corrupt agencies and politicians, while vulnerable people at home are in desperate need of a hand up and get less help than they need or deserve. A serious message delivered in a compelling manner by a person of substance can have irresistible appeal. But no. UKIP has Bloom.

That covers the pathetic, so what of the stunningly inaccurate? Bloom, lacking the intelligence God gifted to an amoeba, decided to venture onto the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to force the state to review whole life tariff prison sentences that are handed down to the very worst murderers. In what he probably considers to be a very witty little rant, he said:

You can torture people to death but you jolly well can’t give them a full life sentence because that’s against their human rights.

He went on to berate the lack of a death penalty. The wannabe hangman, as per usual, was wrong about life sentences. As much as I despise the activism of, and our submission to, the ECHR that was not what the ruling did. There is nothing preventing a whole life tariff being handed down. There is nothing preventing the state keeping the most dangerous criminals behind bars until they die. What the ECHR did was require that from time to time the sentence is reviewed to ensure it remains appropriate.

I resent that the ECHR required this. It should have been a British court making such a ruling. But there is nothing wrong with the ideal of reviewing sentences, at which point the state can say ‘yes, the sentence remains appropriate in this case and remains applicable to this convict’.

But when we are dealing with someone as superficial and disconnected as Bloom, facts and reality are repelled by the sheer life force of ignorance that denotes the man.

UKIP should be ashamed of the shocking embarrassment that is Godfrey Bloom. But behind closed doors today they are probably lauding him.

UPDATE: Well, well, well. As I expected UKIP’s course of action on this is to effectively do nothing. The official response is in. Steve Crowther, the Ukip chairman, said:

We are asking Godfrey not to use this phrase again, as it might be considered disparaging by members from other countries. However, foreign aid is an extremely important debate that needs wider discussion.

Yeah, that should do it. Heads being stuck firmly in the sand as Nigel’s pet must not be chastised.

Also par for the course is that UKIP clearly has no issue with Bloom’s misrepresentation of the ECHR ruling on whole life tariff sentencing. Perhaps their lack of ‘doing detail’ means they don’t understand exactly what was said. Far more important to them is getting the Blessed Nigel a photo call in a pub, or trying to keep up with him as he is pursued from venue to venue in Scotland.

It’s as though Lynton Crosby wrote his script. I can see Cameron giggling and smirking at the same time. Bloom, like Farage, so often says the right thing the wrong way and at the wrong time. But when he told the BBC that most listeners agreed with him: I think he was probably right.

I believe there is a massive untapped national UKIP base just waiting to be properly invited, properly informed and, most importantly, properly led. But something is missing here – as so clearly demonstrated by Mr Bloom’s puerile presentation.

But there is still time because UKIP is the only party that aspires to a prosperous regenerated and independent Great Britain.

Bully for you, Bucko. But you’re already in the tank for UKIP. The point is, many others will NOT be because of moronic behaviour like this from Bloom.

There are not many other ex BNP voters to hoover up, so UKIP needs to start growing up if it wants to hook rational, ordinary people. But I think we all know that the playgroup that passes for Farage’s senior team won’t do that.

I agree with you, AM, that the WAY he said those things could have been a great deal more powerful.
But, what he was saying (about foreign aid) will resonate with many, many people – me included.
I know you dont have a great deal of respect for UKIP but it is the only viable alternative for all us wanting to vote for None of the Above.

Bit harsh! :-)
There may well be a lot of people who don’t turn to UKIP because of this, but they will be the ones who are offended by it, and such people probably wouldn’t bother with UKIP anyway.
Along with ‘booze and fags’, a lot of people have had enough of political correctness, and showing a contempt for it, will bring those people in.

At the end of the day, UKIP is Nigel Ferage. Because a political party can’t just be about one person, that’s why we’ll never see a UKIP government, not because one of them uses some un PC language.

I don’t think that anybody but Guardianistas and, possibly, the rulers of Bongo Bongo land will be the least upset by Mr. Bloom’s remarks. Not people, I think, who are, in the wildest imagination, likely to be UKIP swing voters.

As you say, the points could have been made more powerfully and cogently but was Bloom speaking from a public platform or just in private conversation, reported by some “Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter” of the People’s PC Police?

I remember Anne Winterton getting stitched up the same way and was appalled at the Conservative leadership’s po-faced, PC response.

So I am rather disappointed at the UKIP leadership getting its knickers into a similar PC twist.

Congratulations for falling for the Guardian ploy. I kind of expected better from you AM. Are you now going to troll all the other UKIP pubic appearances to highlight other ‘gaffs’ or just wait for others to do it for you?
The insignificance of his comment (a single comment within a 40 minute presentation that was otherwise unreportable – indeed I doubt anyone, even UKIP supporters, had even known of this talk/appearance) that has been in existence for a few weeks before being dragged to attention by deliberate headline-seeking Guardianistas….
No, UKIP aren’t the ‘answer’. LibLabCon surely aren’t either. THA isn’t going to see the light of day for years. We will shortly have a choice. Voting none-of-the-above will also fail to achieve anything so given these (poor) options, who do you suggest we vote for?

I haven’t fallen for any ploy. The Guardian didn’t entrap Bloom, no one scripted him, so his ignorance and stupidity is down to him. What is depressing is that he holds such a pivotal position within UKIP.

It’s another example of Farage’s appalling judgement. While you might not like it, it builds a pattern of UKIP’s lack of substance and capacity for self destruction – which, and this is the issue, will harm all of the Eurosceptic movement.

As for voting, I would not bother voting for any of them. They don’t warrant getting the legitimacy that voting confers. Nothing will change.

I think the whole episode has only managed to demonstrate how childish and idiotic our political system has become. There is no place for ridiculous political correctness in our country. Like many of us, we have been left with so few words we are “allowed” to utter that Mr Bloom probably thought Bongo, bongo land was a much more acceptable term than “that third world shithole where money disappears into a black hole” kind of rhetoric. The truth is even sadder as the DM has pointed out this morning. We are and have been ripped off and Cameron et al are standing by and condoning it. Rather than worry about people using personal colloquialisms, worry about the governments hand constantly in our pockets without our consent.

The only way to combat PC speak is to say what you think and never apologise. The minute you go on the defensive you play right into the hands of the Guardian and the BBC. Bongo bongo land is no better or worse than the fuzzy wuzzies that Corporal Jones once went on about. If someone mentioned fuzzy wuzzies nowadays they would be widely condemned for it and that’s pathetic. Commenters here seem to have realised what the writer of this blog has not: just because something might offend a few sensitive types is no reason not to say it. That’s what freedom of speech is all about.

I used to think that this was a blog largely supportive of UKIP but it seems the more successful UKIP becomes the more this blog finds to criticise. Now you’re saying you’re not going to vote for anyone. Well that’s just brilliant! I wonder when we might have a candidate or party of a sufficiently high calibre for you to consider going back to the ballot box. Hopefully we wont be the US of Eirope by then.

It is interesting how Bloom’s behaviour is being interpreted as “not politically correct”, as if that was something necessarily commendable. Another interpretation is “oafishness”. That may be “not politically correct” but it does not mean it is commendable.

If you look up Godfrey Bloom in Wikipaedia you will see that he is a former TA officer and financial economist. In fact he is better qualified than the current Chancellor of the Exchequer or Defence Secretary to run either the Treasury or Ministry of Defence. To suggest that he is an idiot or an oaf is not just disrespectful but unjustifiably insulting. So he makes the occasional gaff; so does Prince Philip, but nobody is suggesting that Philip should be sacked. The fact is that Godfrey could have made the best speech in British post war history and the media would not have reported it. Instead they report a few words from a 40 minute speech. This is what UKIP is up against.

Bloom, I recall, was an officer in the logistics corps, which hardly makes his qualified to run the defence portfolio – which is a political post and not a military one. And by his own estimation he is a “financial economist”. I see no academic qualifications there.

And, with all that, he is also a loud-mouthed, arrogant oaf. What he had to say was entirely typical of the man – a milder version of what he says in private.

That is what we outside UKIP are up against. A man who is dragging down the cause, and linking euroscepticism with his foul, narrow-minded prejudice. The man should be disowned, and attempts to justify his actions simply make the situation worse.

Dr North I respect your opinion of Mr Bloom as you probably know him personally whilst I have never met him. I would suggest though that, modest as his qualifications may be, they are probably substantially better than Mr Hammond’s or Mr Osborne’s. I can only judge him from what I’ve seen of him making speeches on UKIP videos and I have been quite impressed. I’m surprised you haven’t got anything positive to say about him.

I don’t really get offended by anything people say, I just agree or disagree. Bongo bongo land got him media coverage and nobody to address his aid concerns – they were too busy addressing his language. Open goal.